Review: ‘Hard Core Logo II’

Fans of Bruce McDonald’s 1996 mock-doc on the punk scene, “Hard Core Logo,” will perhaps be the most chagrined at the unfunny mess of his “sequel” of sorts, “Hard Core Logo II.” Everyone else will be bored at this thoroughly unconvincing misadventure, in which McDonald as “Bruce the Filmmaker” tries to document what happens when Hard Core Logo lead singer Joe Dick’s spirit supposedly inhabits the body of actual young punker Care Failure, playing a version of herself. Pic’s prospects are nil.

McDonald’s annoying narration means to guide the viewer through the mock-doc’s strained conceit, which has Bruce suddenly unemployable as a Hollywood TV director and partnering with a crew for Wiccan TV to investigate if Dick’s soul has possessed the already unhinged Failure (leader of the band Die Mannequin and whose personality appears to be no deeper than her heavily lipsticked smirk). Much of the action deals with a laborious set of rehearsals in a Saskatchewan dance hall, overseen by Brit ex-rocker Bucky Haight (Julian Richings, returning from the original pic). The singer, and the pic around her, live down to the latter half of her stage name.